Roulette has traditionally been one of the most popular land-based and online casino games over the last decade. And now you can even play roulette on your iPhone or Google Android phone at a number of mobile casino options below.
Rules of Roulette
Roulette is one of the world’s oldest casino games and has been around since the 18th century. Roulette as started in France and stands for “little wheel”. Nowadays it is one of the most popular traditional casino games, fancied by many wealthy gamblers at places such as the Monte Carlo in Monaco.
The game of roulette revolves around a spinning wheel which has the numbers 0 – 36 engraved in red/black pockets. When a game begins, the players will place their bets and the dealer or “croupier” will then spin the wheel and drop the ball into the wheel. Once the wheel stops spinning and the ball lands inside one of the pockets the players are paid off accordingly. Note that once the ball has landed on a number, the croupier will place the dolly on the table, which signals that no more bets can be placed. If your are a new player that has come to the table then you’ll have to wait until the dealer accepts more bets before you can put any chips down.
The maximum/minimum table limits vary between different casinos (both online, land-based or mobile casinos). At my local casino the minimum for straight bets is £1 and this increases to £5 for certain outside bets.
The types of bets that you can make and the odds for winning vary. Obviously the pay-offs are related to the odds of an event occurring. For example, a straight bet (e.g. betting on a specific number such as 5 or 18) will normally pay out 35:1 even though the true odds are 37:1 or 38:1 for the 38 ball USA version of roulette.
The types of bets that you can make are divided into two groups, inside bets and outside bets. Inside bets are more related to the individual number or betting on a pattern of numbers based on their proximity (e.g. Split = betting on two adjoining numbers, Corner = betting on four numbers joined by the corner). Outside bets on the other hand tend to have smaller odds with a high chance of winning. Betting on the colour of the ball (red/black), Odd or Even, 1-18, 19-36, Snake Bet, Dozens or Columns are well known Outside bets.
Overall, the odds for roulette are 2.7% in the house’s favour for European Roulette (37 balls) or 5.2% for US Roulette (contains an extra “00” which means there’s a total of 38 balls).